


Do I Know You?

by Good_Evening



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Amnesia, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Anonymous Sex, Comedy, Dimension Travel, Drabble Collection, Dubious Consent, Fluff, Intersex Loki (Marvel), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Kid Loki and Kid Thor (Marvel), Loki and Thor Are Not Related, M/M, Mindfuck, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Other, Pre-Thor (2011), Rape/Non-con Elements, Sibling Incest, Smut, Unrequited Love, Vaginal Fingering, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:02:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Evening/pseuds/Good_Evening
Summary: Loki floats in the Void with fantasies that never come true. He sees plenty of Thors to infuriate him, and even more to question the nature of their relationship and what he wants out of it.That is to say, his dreams feel more real than reality.-A series of tales ranging from fluffy mornings to sultry afternoons to dead doves with the requisite warning.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 103





	1. Stranger in a Strange Land [M]

**Author's Note:**

> Mini-prompts to inspire longer works.

This isn’t even his third favorite bar, by any means, but the city isn’t as large as he’d hoped, and none of the men at his office are out and willing to share. So here he is. Alone, bored, nursing a drink as strong as the state DUI limit allows, and waiting. And waiting…

Not that he has a shortage of suitors, even if half the men here have already seen him at other bars, and perhaps half of those approached him. A few succeeded. Loki didn’t come here to be admired or fawned over or even to get laid. All perks, of course, but the nature of his game is a little different. Something about this town evades him even as it draws him in, from the larger issue of his workplace being entirely unequipped, understaffed, and strangely _agitated_ by his presence--as though he’d ever needed help being written off despite his talents--to the much smaller, inconsequential, and confoundingly aggravating problems of where to eat out, which park was best for his morning jog, where to put the coffee table, the plant, the coffee table, _the blasted coffee table._

He’s run into it countless times, no. He’s only been here a month. Constellations could be plotted on his shins.

This is all to say, that although Loki knows how to adapt to practically any setting, the peculiarities of this town are slowly driving him mad, and talking to headquarters about his predicament makes him feel rather like he’s in an episode of _The Twilight Zone_.

_“Another!”_

He spits out his drink, primarily because suddenly his cup is jumping into his face, then down his shirt, and finally dribbling onto his hand when he struggles to keep down what’s left of it in his mouth.

“My apologies,” the man next to him, still shouting, shouts apologetically in his ear. He cocks his head. “Have we met?”

Loki reels.

Loki _loses_ it.

Normally, he’s quite good at keeping it, whatever ‘it’ happens to be, but the second the stranger appears in his periphery, golden hair, blue eyes, and a gratingly kind and open expression, he goes absolutely ballistic. The bartender cuts him off. He cuts _himself_ off, argument after insult after condemnation to hell. He’s not nearly drunk enough to explain his outburst. The sight of this man inspires utter hatred, annoyance, and striking, suffocating, enraging familiarity.

By the time Loki’s reduced to gasping on the pavement, (the bartender must have been an MMA fighter to heave him so far) the disorienting sight of the man’s tennis shoes by his face, his arm on his arm, lifting him up, is strangely welcoming. All has been forgiven, whatever it all was.

Blue eyes have narrowed, a look that crosses too easily from shrewd to dumbfounded on his trusting face.

“Loki, right?”

His front is drenched and his face is drenched and red and sputtering and about to spew out another rant. The man smiles, tightens his grip on his waist to remind him he’s still technically holding him up. Very easily.

 _Very easily_ , Loki thinks, grossly aroused.

“Thor.” He squeezes his waist and lets go, and Loki falls a little, realizing he was literally on his toes, now scrutinizing their height difference with another flash of immense indignation. “You’re Loki. I heard the bartender when he, er, told the bouncer you were banned. Probably not for life. I mean, they don’t have a photo of you or anything…” Loki keeps looking at him as though willing he burst into flame, or else do something with the heat he’s inspired. Thor smirks. “I feel like we’ve met, but you’re not from around here, are you?” He tucks his hands in his sweatshirt pockets.

 _A sweatshirt? At this bar?_ Loki scoffs internally, until he finds himself scoffing out loud. For all this man inspires such strange rage, he feels uncomfortably unguarded around him.

“You’re soaked through, sorry about that,” he says, stripping off the offensively grey sweatshirt. Loki now understands the necessity of such ugly, baggy clothing.

You could light a matchstick on his abs. Would those arms crush him with their first kiss? The breadth of his shoulders compared to Loki's is like that of Pangaea to Iceland. He feels, all at once, indignant, inadequate, and disgustingly turned on. Moreso. Especially now that he’s made no motion to receive the sweatshirt, and Thor is draping around his shoulders, speaking to him as though he were a frightened, feral cat, and this is Thor’s shirt, and this is Thor’s car, and this is Thor’s hand on his thigh and his arm, jaw, seat lever, waist, buckle. Thor's fingers curling inside him, massive hands manhandling him into the backseat to sink into him like they were never meant to be apart.

Loki was built to take his cock, Thor assures him. Thor was built to be on top of him, he agrees.

And Loki thinks, as bruises that will take weeks to fade grow in number on his neck and he moans into Thor’s hair, shaking under his strength, _Yes. This is familiar. This is right_.

His eyes open wide and his breath shudders. _But it isn’t us_.


	2. In His Cells [E]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, to the very core. You have been warned.

The stone floor had bruised him to the bone, so Thor acquired furs for him. The lack of a bath had left his hair lank and his skin pitiful, so Thor brought with him the wash basin from his old rooms, his mother-of-pearl comb, and exotic oils. Loki learned very quickly which scents were his favorites. How often had Thor lingered in his empty chambers while he was presumed dead? Neither their parents nor the servants must have known the true depths of his depression, his deprivation.

He stared at the little basin, its delicate porcelain, thinking how once Thor let it go, it would shatter, to say nothing of that which he held.

His thighs ached. His throat was stripped raw from the inside, tender and bruised without. At the sides of his head, his hands remained obediently turned up and open, free of daggers or improvised weapons lest Thor determine he was fighting his rehabilitation yet again.

_"Brother, oh, Loki,"_

Loki loosed a wheeze that, mere months ago, would have been a laugh. To be fair, back then this was not quite so laughable. It was not. The first fight was quick but took much longer to die in him, and while Thor's reasoning never took root, his method had met success, at least partway. _One does not lie with one's brother as with a common trollop,_ Loki had sneered at the start of his confinement, but no one had listened to him before. Why start now?

Thor did like to hear his voice, as he had teased. Merely not his screams. Apparently _I despise you_ and _Don't touch me_ were closer to jokes than warnings to let him go, no. Thor had never quite taken to being denied. Perhaps the Allfather's missing eye meant he could only see the evil in one son and not both.

By now, surely, Loki was justified in his attempted plot to murder them.

Thor groaned, his thumb gliding down to rub at Loki's aching clit. His hand twitched. He'd learned that no response was better than resistance to a warrior like Thor. A scruffy beard nuzzled into his neck and the thrusts grew erratic, rough fingers spreading the soft petals of Loki's sex to feel the glide of a god's cock inside, sticky with seed. Thor came a fourth time, failing to bring his brother with him. Thankfully, he saw the futility of that exercise, though he probably assumed the previous two orgasms he'd forced on him had sated him for the evening.

Inside, his seed had already taken root. Loki felt the loathsome cells sapping his strength, literally stealing his lifeblood, and he hated it. Hated the Allfather, who'd sentenced him. Hated Thor, who claimed he’d intended to soften the blow with this cell rather than damn Loki to torture, in the end to ulterior motives to which their parents-- _his_ parents--never would have publicly agreed, had he voiced his insanity. A century hanging from broken joints would have been time better spent than under his brother.

He pulled his legs up into a tight ball as Thor returned to the wash basin for a cloth. When it met his skin, he shivered, the clink of his manacles damning. Thor kissed his shoulder. His voice was soft with sex, repulsive.

"Soon, brother," he whispered. The cloth drifted lazily through the spend on Loki's belly. "He cannot keep the mother of a future prince of Asgard in chains. I will not have our child born here." Insatiable, his fingers stroked Loki's slit, twisting inside where a gush of slick and come made him moan. "You will be free, all will be revealed: your parentage." He held his belly covetously, but gently. "Our child."

Thor turned him. A rare glimpse of self-reflection crossed his face. Loki made no effort to retort, not that Thor had ever heeded his words.

"I would not force you to marry me."

At this, Loki snickered. The pain of his aching chest and hips was sobering, awakening him to the brutality of his condition when he'd done so well to detach himself from all but justified rage and ways to escape. Thus far, he'd found none. For all Frigga claimed to be his mother, she must have taken a cruder delight in crafting this prison, since even his seidr was nearly snuffed in addition to the sluggishness of his body as Thor moved it to his pleasure. Apparently he was trusted only enough to be sown with the future king's seed. How terrible Odin must have been to her for this to seem a kindness. So Loki escaped in his mind. The utter blankness of being he found in the middle distance was preferable to hearing Thor's words, although in close quarters, they were difficult to ignore.

"Asgard would not have seen a wiser nor a more powerful queen." He kissed his brother's brow. "Think on it, and in time, when your pregnancy cannot be ignored, I swear to you, you shall be released. Goodnight, brother."

He fixed himself up easily: only his breeches needed lacing. On some level, at least, he knew the general disapproval he would suffer if he were caught fucking his brother. "Fucking" being the operative word. Even with his seidr gone, the consensus would likely be that Loki had tricked him into securing the throne for his own children. It would never cross their minds that the god of lies could be raped. Asgardians in general were skeptical of the crime, and yet perceived the little Jotunn prince as a savage in need of containment.

Well. Technically, he _had_ gone a bit savage on Midgard. 

The clang of the prison door was a welcome sound and Loki turned shakily onto his arms to watch it, to reassure himself that Thor would not return, his passions redoubled. It had happened, before.

He was a god of fertility, after all.

And a stupid one, at that.

_He cannot keep the mother of a future prince of Asgard in chains._

The Allfather would do exactly as he pleased, and with his, Heimdall's, and Frigga's powers of sight combined against him, Loki's fate and current debauchery were undeniably already well-known. A better punishment than even Odin could have decreed, at least openly. Loki doubted he'd put Thor up to it. This was exactly the plane of idiocy on which he strutted through life without issue. Leave it to Loki to be the only one to understand the true horror of his position, yet another prison to be locked in.

His legs squirmed at the disgusting feeling of Thor's spend leaking from him. He'd learned that he'd run out of towels before the last of it left him, and now waited nearly an hour before it was all out to clean.

Hairless and muscled, his belly had the telltale pouch of a uterus, sticking out ever so slightly above his pelvis. Thor lavished it with attention. He'd excitedly explained his studies of Jotnar anatomy over various trips between the library and Loki's cell, never once assessing the absolute stupidity of his requests of the librarian who reported the log directly to Frigga each week. They’d known that since they were children. If not mere thoughtlessness, perhaps Thor didn’t care. This would be the exact sort of dubious cunning he’d be proud of. They must expect his condition to progress, for him to seek out ever more explicit and elusive texts on Jotnar birth, babes, and childrearing. In any other context, he'd be an ideal father. He certainly saw himself in that light, somewhere near the farce of his brilliance in hatching this scheme.

The little ball of cells hung inside him like a man waiting on the gallows. Loki conserved his magic, heavily and painfully subdued but not removed, for the task of disturbing and reabsorbing the stolen material. He had to wait, however. Resources were limited, slow to recharge. He'd learned that close to two months was when Thor typically questioned his almost constant state of nausea. The excitement in his voice always left Loki gagging, the possibility of morning sickness only exciting him more, but Loki would never let it get that far again. He didn't eat. He barely moved. He waited.

Once they realized they wouldn't have another Jotunn as a royal pawn, a fresh slate, perhaps his ultimate punishment would take effect. When Thor's enthusiasm faded. When they at last sealed his magic from him and he clawed out his belly to keep his body whole. Himself.

It never factored into Thor's plans, this small snag of Loki's pride, Loki's _dignity._ Why, _of course_ freedom to roam the castle came before the freedom of bodily autonomy. _Of course_ he should feel lucky to receive the favor of Thor's cock when there was no choice but to take it, or else it would be force-fed to his cunt as Thor had chastened him after those first few nights of "training." Opening him up. Reshaping him for his new, diminished purpose as the king's broodmare, to be fucked full and for the whole kingdom to know it: that brotherhood means nothing in the house of Odin when one has the misfortune to carry foreign blood. To be bitched. 

The Norns laugh. Thor would come to him, night after night, sharing his dreams and delights and potential names, holding him close while he fucked him as though this small, cold cell were already their marriage bed.

 _Yes, this is right,_ he thinks, the rage inside him flickering. Memories of their happy childhood, of Thor's sweetness to him bubbled up, unwelcome. He closed his eyes, carefully numbing himself. _But it isn't us._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Temporary free rides to Hell, anyone joining?


	3. A Childhood in Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki magnanimously bestows a gift on his brother. Thor accepts it with joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki looks about nine, and Thor is twenty-two.

Loki crafts it, his first true creation of pure seidr, with a specific spot in Thor’s room in mind. He can hardly wait until the end of his lesson, receiving Mother’s encouragement and floating on it until the very moment he enters Thor’s chambers. Still young enough to take mostly unmitigated pride in his accomplishments, Father's laconic comments notwithstanding, his chest is puffed, shoulders poised with boyish pride. He’s ready to bestow this gift upon his brother like a fairytale maiden risen from a lake, when he stops. The door closes behind him, heavy but silent on its hinges.

Armor everywhere. Swords dulled from practice, tomes and manuals and papers from the Allfather scattered with the care and understanding of a boy thrust into a government he will never know quite how to lead. And there, there on his bookshelf, in the perfect possible spot for him to see whenever he wakes, is some… _trinket_. Not that Loki isn’t technically carrying a trinket, himself, although it is vastly superior in every way. No, this is a token. Something from a girl, surely. A wreath of flowers.

 _We’ve woven much better crowns_ , he thinks haughtily, setting his gift on the one open spot on the mess of a table. The bed is equally encumbered, primarily because Thor has sprawled across it so that every limb stretches over every side.

He’s outgrown it.

(This, their bed, as Loki thinks of it, which they’d shared through childhood and somewhat beyond, to the disapproval of their parents)

Softly, he breathes into the quilts. Exhausted. He must have passed out the moment his armor fell. His tunic and shirt are drenched in sweat, and the dust from the training grounds clings to him in a disgusting film that has Loki wincing in sympathy. Thor must have trained hard, today. He looks toward the table. His seidr’s always getting better.

Grounding oneself for a spell eases with age, but in youth, the senses are heightened in other ways, uncontrollable ways. The sunlight off Thor’s hair, the smell of his sweat, the sound of his breath, all roil against Loki like waves off a cliff. He stands, but his focus tumbles at his feet, and then he closes his eyes. Memories serve better for such purposes. He still sees Thor, but it’s night and the room is close and cold as he watches himself crawl into the seemingly vast bed. He feels the sheets surge over his own legs. Thor pulls him into his arms without waking, the warmth of him surrounding and whole.

There. That’s where Loki needs to be. That’s where Loki _is_.

Green tendrils spiral through the fabric of Thor’s tunic and whisk away the dirt and sweat and grime. His body lifts an inch-- _a delicate inch_ \--off the sheets and he pulls them quickly aside. His brother falls without waking. He clutches the pillow and mumbles.

Loki removes his boots personally. Then his leggings, his braided belt, and the other knots and ends that would have taken a boring amount of focus to accomplish. He does feel rather proud of himself, though, looking down on his sleeping brother, to have done all this and with him none the wiser. It’s easier to be nice behind closed doors, these days. Thor’s friends don’t trust him. They don’t even pretend to like him despite his mother’s open and doting approval of him in all forums except the battlefield. Dunces will be dunces. No matter how much time practice absorbs, Thor is still his.

Or perhaps that’s the other way around, since one moment, Loki is half-perched on the bed, face gentle and even a little fond, and the next, he’s yanked down on his side, wrapped up entirely in Thor’s arms, and their faces are nearly crushed together as Thor’s lips press against his forehead.

“You were _awake,”_ he hisses, scrabbling at his chest.

“Aye,” Thor rumbles, stilling him, “and you were magnificent. That’s the most I’ve seen you move in one attempt.”

Loki grumbles, “Only because you’re so heavy, you oaf.”

“Exactly right.”

Thor opens one eye. Loki’s pout holds out admirably and fizzles into a sigh. It barely contains his smile.

“Father says you’re doing well on the battlefield,” he says distantly.

“And mother says you’re exemplary in the tea room.”

Loki stabs at him with nails conjured sharp. Thor flinches and concedes, which for Thor is hugging him even tighter, which really isn’t conceding considering the fact that Loki now has no chance of escaping without conjuring something truly dangerous.

Thor lifts his head to look at the table.

“What’s that, you’ve brought?”

“It’s a--”

“Bring it over.”

Loki struggles to extricate himself but Thor only grins. With a great sigh, he bends the gravity around his gift and it floats on a wave of seidr to the bedside.

“What is this?” he inquires again, sitting up and dragging his brother bodily with him. Loki grunts.

“It’s a clasp. For the cape mother wove you. See?” He tries to take it from him but their hands only entwine. Surrender doesn’t come easily to Loki, but he sighs and shifts onto his chest entirely, comfortable beyond reason because this has been their natural state since Thor was first permitted to lift him from his crib. Their dynamic is inviolable. Even for his relative weakness on the battlefield, Thor can still marvel at his creations at this point in time.

Of course, that will fade, but Loki is young enough to faith in him, if not their father.

The piece is extraordinary, moreso as Thor handles it with reverence. Loki blushes and tilts his chin higher. Fine iron whorls circle two rubies on either side of the clasp, and a deceptively thin and fashionable chain connects them. Thor tests it with his fists and his brows raise.

“Very good,” he notes, bringing the rubies closer. “It’s missing something, though.”

Loki frowns indignantly.

“It’s a gift, not a commission.”

“I mean I don’t see your signature.”

“It’s there, my seidr, you can see--”

 _“I_ can’t see, not like you with your witchsight, at least.” Thor cards his fingers over Loki’s, drawing him up tighter. “Dumb it down for me, will you?”

“No, the gift is perfect. It’s not my fault you’re a poor student.”

Thor chooses this time to blow a disgustingly wet and _loud_ raspberry into his neck that--despite making him shriek like a bilgesnipe kit in a trap--makes him laugh like nothing else.

“Oh, _here_. Look, you buffoon!” He wheezes, and wheezes. The finer details of his work come alive, lingering green energy that ensconces the piece with a dragon’s breath glow. Thor’s mouth falls open in wonder.

“Is it enchanted, then?”

Loki sniffs, “In a way.”

“With your love for me, surely.”

Silence. A beat. Two beats.

 _“THOR!”_ He screeches as he’s thrust into the mattress, his brother ensnaring him in a hug so tight, his lungs are fit to pop out his ears. The assault advances with his writhing until Thor wraps so intricately around him, they’re practically imitating the design of the forgotten clasp.

“I love you, too, brother,” Thor hums as he nuzzles his cheek.

Loki blushes beet red and bites his nose, but his boulder of a brother only laughs and burrows into his neck. The heave of his chest as he sighs and adjusts himself is like the shake of the ground under Ymir’s foot. Loki jostles until Thor sees fit to stop. Then quiet. And quiet. And then a very audible snore. Might as well give in, really, even if he could lift him. The day’s practice with seidr has left Loki drained, the setting sun is still warm, and Thor’s incredibly outward affections have never been rejected in their bed.

And Loki thinks, as the evening light fades alongside Thor’s breathing, _Yes. This is familiar. This is right._

His eyes open wide and his breath shudders. _But it isn’t us._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the gods, but this series could do with a little fluff.


	4. An Incidental Oracle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki tries to communicate to a witch that he's lost his idiot brother. She doesn't seem to understand.

The issue of adventuring with your brother is that inevitably someone will get hurt, someone will set someone off, and there is almost unlimited potential for terrible revelations, no matter how long they take to sink in. The former two are the most positive slant to Loki's rant against Thor, directed toward an uneasy Fae-looking woman with glass eyes and elaborate rune scars. She hears him out with a solemn expression from where she rests on a fallen pillar. A circle of ruins surrounds them, blockaded by a barrier of seidr the key to unlocking which Loki has no idea of, and Thor effectively abandoned him to his fate the second he stepped through.

Well, he disappeared. It’s more likely that he fell into a trap himself. A terrifying thought, since magic isn’t his strong suit and Mjolnir’s strength is only as effective as his will to burst this proverbial bubble. On the contrary, maybe it’s a sort of timeout for Loki. They had been arguing since sunrise, to be honest. Which Loki is not. At least not fully.

Thor deserves to worry for his foolishness, anyway.

At the end of his tirade, Loki finally asks her, red-faced and panting, where his lummock of a brother is and how to exit. It should strike him as strange that he’s been so open with a stranger but something about this place puts him off guard, come to think of it. He wasn’t alarmed so much as instantly irritated to have found himself trapped. Loki does not  _ get _ trapped. Loki rescues  _ Thor _ from magical traps.

Her eyes clear to a luminous gold and he reels back.

"My apologies, prince," she says, voice hoarse like the creak of trees, "the barrier is an extension of my aura and when I leave, you will be free. I was unaware you were trying to reach someone."

Loki seethes, "I've been describing that blond buffoon to you for a quarter of an hour, of  _ course _ I'm looking for him, bastard older brother, yea high, would trade me for a night with a troll's daughter!" He almost starts in again, but her eyes glaze. She holds up her hand.

"I do not know whom or what you are trying to describe." She shifts a little, obviously done with him. "I am unable to hear lies, even those which we are unaware we speak. You say you are seeking a blond man?"

"Yes, my brother!" He shouts. She cocks her head.

"What?"

In hindsight, he shouldn't have written her off as another crazy swamp witch.


	5. A Hop, Skip, and an Eternal Jump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki learns the Void's not all that empty

It’s never been hard for him to justify his actions, or to handle being alone, either as the cause or a direct result of his mischief, especially as a child of the house of Odin. Or the ransom prince. Whatever he was meant to be when he was no longer Frigga’s son.

Much as he hated his cell and Thor visiting him like some caged animal, at least it had amenities. Loki hasn’t been falling all that long, and how long it lasts isn’t exactly up to him, which isn’t to say that the Void is strictly under the purview of the Norns, either. It feels a little like being that coin forgotten in a coat pocket. In a few weeks, or months, or even years, someone will put it back on and find him nestled in there and think, _Hey! I forgot about this, how lucky,_ but considering every bridge he’s burnt up to this moment, that reunion isn’t likely to be happy. If he does stop falling.

Time being meaningless isn’t helping his outlook. Nevermind. He’ll close his eyes, have a nice nap, wait for this whole thing to blow over. It's not like the darkness behind or before his eyelids is preferable. He settles a little, folds his hands together and presses them tight over his torso, a little grounding mechanism his mother taught him around the time Thor started leaving on adventures without him.

_Loki!_

His whole body jolts. He looks around at the nothingness to look at, can’t even hear his own breath without air. And yet he heard Thor’s voice.

He closes his eyes again to center himself, and encounters more than he could have planned for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit late to be establishing how the vignettes come together--in the loosest, laziest possible way I could conjure, but. Meh. No one pays me to do this (except for when I write during downtime at work).


	6. Puzzle [E]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hot. There's no A/C. 91 and counting and Thor is wearing fucking jeans. All Loki wants to do is finish his puzzle and sleep. Too bad he's wearing practically nothing, and somebody takes that as a cue.

It’s not the ideal rest for his sudoku puzzle. His hand is cramping, his fingers flex around the pen (Loki refuses to use a pencil--every move he makes is precise and correct). He wears the bare minimum of clothing acceptable in the summer, the only fan in the house pointed at him or, as it was so graciously put, sacrificed to his highness. By all means, he should feel like a prince lounging on his throne. With one leg on the couch and his head and neck sturdily supported by the armrest, Loki barely has to do anything to keep his position, his comfort, and yet it’s proving almost impossible. His penmanship is rattled because Thor's head won't stop moving.

“If you spent half as much time cleaning as this, we might look as though we have a live-in maid,” he breathes, finishing off the fives with a quaking hand.

Thor hums between his legs, an unbearable sensation that has him quaking all over and the back of his neck prickling with unwelcome sweat. Loki hates the heat. He hates fucking in the heat. He hates how easy it is for Thor to walk around wearing  _ jeans _ when it’s ninety-one and counting and it’s not even noon and he  _ still _ has the libido of a stag in rut.

“It’s hard to ignore his majesty when he presents himself so well,” he teases, leaning back. His tongue darts over the head of Loki’s cock. His punishment is the swift whack of the puzzle book on his scalp. “You can’t tell me you don’t like it.” He resumes his course, the familiar plastic rustle of a condom and the  _ clack _ of a bottle penetrating Loki’s focus.

“I didn’t agree to that,” he fumes, but Thor’s fingers are as skilled as his mouth. He circles his entrance as he spirals his tongue around his cock, goading, grinning triumphantly when Loki lifts his hips in silent acquiescence.

“Beg pardon,” Thor whispers, nuzzling him and inhaling. Loki jolts. “Please accept my sincerest apologies.” He takes him whole in his mouth as his finger glides in.

Loki’s words leave him in tight little heaves, “We already… this morning… how can you think I have this much energy? How do  _ you?!” _

Thor pulls off and laughs, probing deeply and curling, drinking in the sight of his husband twitching and grinding around such a small part of him, such a promise. He’d had to wait until 3am to even get Loki’s attention. Siestas are essential to his sanity, this time of year, and he typically slept through this part of the day while Thor puttered around the garage or played with his weight set as long as the heat permitted. Now, it’s too hot  _ even to sleep _ . In the wee hours, it was already in the eighties. He had to promise to cook for the next three days just to get Loki to open his legs.

“My appetites know no bounds. You’ve complained of that much as long as we’ve been together.” He twists his fingers and Loki hisses, prompting a pause. When he grinds back down, Thor smirks and speeds up, forearm flexing. He rubs the front of his jeans as Loki’s legs fall further apart and he covers his flushed face with the puzzle book.

“You’re an animal in every sense of the word,” he huffs.  _ “Oh, there!” _ His hips pulse up and Thor squeezes the base of his cock, delighting in the squeal he makes and adding another finger. “You… you’re cleaning this up…” he pants. “Bloody scotch guard makes it too easy on you!”

He allows himself to be manhandled as Thor takes the cue. Legs pushed up, their flesh slides and sticks with sweat, a miserable feeling, and even Thor’s heat against his entrance is almost unbearable. Pleasure is a greedy beast, though. He moans as he’s breached, arms rising to clutch the armrest behind him as Thor bottoms out and begins thrusting almost immediately.

“Not for nothing,” he gasps, blond hair sticking to his forehead, “but it might be a bit warm for this.”

His laughter is grating.

Loki sputters and his mouth is claimed in a kiss. Unwilling to let the mockery slide, he grasps Thor by the belt loops and yanks him forward, clenching rhythmically.

_ “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck,” _

Victory. Loki contains his voice until Thor’s had enough and pins one of his hands to the couch. Instinct drives him to fight it, an excellent companion to their usual play, but the near steam rising between their bodies is revolting and Thor can’t get a good grip anyway. He kicks his side, thrusting up impatiently.

“Finish, you fool. I’ll be showering for days because of you.”

“Then, I’ll,” Thor briefly loses his train of thought. Loki’s head flies back as he grinds up into his prostate, shouting as he comes. The pace switches to a brutality only possible once he’s this relaxed, and Loki hangs on for dear life. If he were in his right mind, by now he’d pass some snide comment about how Thor has the grace of a hippo in ballet slippers, or something else insulting and off-putting and entirely against the mood, but the heat, Thor’s face at the height of pleasure, (a face he greedily drinks in) and the goddamn  _ trunk _ of a cock the gods blessed him with, all combine into a poor conduit for sarcasm.

“Come, come, come,  _ come on, you oaf,” _ he grinds out, expending the last of his energy to meet the vicious thrusts. Thor comes with a long groan. His hips stutter as he pushes in as deeply as Loki’s spine and pelvis will allow, and grinds again into his prostate. Loki growls weakly into his shoulder. He twitches with shallow heaves, overstimulated like Thor’s tossed him into an electric fence.

He shoves at him as soon as he collapses, complaining of the heat but Thor only smiles, arms shaking as he lifts himself up, and Loki regards him with begrudging affection. He brushes limp hair behind his ear.

“Now start on lunch. And  _ do not _ turn that stove on or I’ll stab you in your sleep.”

Thor chuckles, laying a chaste kiss on his forehead.

“Whatever his highness commands.”

Loki swats him irritably, wincing as he pulls out.

“Stop calling me that! This is no way to treat royalty, besides.”

Thor hefts himself off and pads to the kitchen, tossing a clean towel which lands squarely on Loki’s face. He giggles over his shoulder as Loki shoots him a death glare marred by a suppressed smile.

“As you wish, husband.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little smut to break all the non-smut.


	7. You Knew [M]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A seedy motel, a strange man who claims to be his brother, and the question of how they got here.

The only light in the room is the dusty lamp above the bedside table. Rented by the hour. Thor can hardly remember how they got here, but his mind is understandably blank. The man atop him grinds down with a long, high groan, black hair curled and sticking to his face with sweat. He reaches out to brush it past his neck. Instantly, a hand clasps over him, holding him there as the thrusts slow to something almost sweet, the man, Loki, whispering secretively into his palm as he kisses it. Thor flushes and grabs his hip, jerking up and relishing the helpless pleasure on his face.

“Loki,” he whispers, and the man nearly shatters.

_"Ah, brother!"_

Loki bucks over him just as Thor’s eyes clear with horror. He scrambles to throw him off, shredding the sheets in an attempt to cover himself. His guest lands hard on the wooden floor but without complaint, with little but the expectation that he would be treated roughly. He glares up at the bed with his fingers spread as if searching for a weapon. Thor wonders if he prepared himself for this from the beginning.

"What the fuck."

"That was the plan, but yes, indeed, _what the fuck?"_

" **Loki**."

He startles where he sits on the floor, gathering his limbs, vulnerable, and on the one hand Thor’s never seen him do this, before, and on the other, _he’s never seen him do this before._ It’s terrifyingly out of character for someone he doesn’t know at all. Someone who calls him “brother.” And Thor feels it. They’ve never met but he feels it, and did this man track him down for such a vicious prank?

"Since I saw you, I felt it," Loki starts coolly, then colder, “since I came of age, since my first crush, my first word, my first dream. Do you know when that was?”

Thor growls as he throws on his coat, forgetting his shirt, “I do not know and I do not care. Get out of my way.” The heat in his voice wavers. Loki lies exactly where he tossed him, naked, molded into a small bundle that nevertheless makes it impossible to leave even though he could step over him, kick him, kill him. Thor has the uneasy revelation that he cannot leave until this man can stand--he, who is his brother and not his brother, whom he grew up with and never met, who has never in his life had a hair out of place. He can’t leave. Not until Loki is dressed, perfect and undisturbed, or in bed where they were, and everything is as it was. Not until he stops looking at him _like that._

Everything must go back to the way it was.

“I did not have my first dream until I met you,” Loki whispers. His lips undulate against the grasp of his teeth. “And I only dreamt of that first moment. I never dreamt, before, nothing, and even that glimpse of you felt unreal. It wasn’t until I woke the next morning that _anything_ felt real,” he declares, seeming smaller and paler and yet monumental where he sits in Thor’s path. “All of my memories--growing up, my parents, my brothers, birthdays and school and degree and even the bar, none of it is, none of it exists, _my life does not exist!”_ Thor steps back. Desperation claws into his voice and he slams a fist on the hardwood. “Nothing outside of us is real, it’s not. We don’t belong here, it’s not real, _you idiot!_ It’s just black. It’s nothing.” His eyes narrow. “It’s just you, me, and the Void.”

Thor feels a sharp pain in his ribs at the height of Loki’s distress, like a knife sliding in between the bones. It’s painfully nostalgic.

Tears stain the face below as this man tries to convince him, this supposed brother he _bedded._ They’ve yet to unpack the “why” of that. Thor doesn’t really want to know, even though he has to. They’re reaching schizophrenic heights as Loki’s explanation sprawls into ancient memories, some things Thor’s dreamt and some so outlandish, he can’t even imagine. Giants, gods, bridges to other planets. A brother he’s never known. All of this, and the elephant in the room that is Loki’s knowledge of their relation, their supposed brotherhood, which he carried to this motel and immediately discarded and not only that but he can’t defend it, speak the truth of what he’s thinking. Thor suspects he hasn’t spoken the truth in his life. He pats his pocket for his wallet and finds it safe.

Loki’s eyes are painfully red as his voice grows hoarse, “You must believe me, I have, we have _met._ Once you leave... this life, it might end. It may as well. It’s happened before.”

Thor’s memories are as dim as Loki says his are. The sky outside is dark, the streetlights dead. The wall of black beyond the motel door feels like a maw that will swallow them both once they step off the threshold’s teeth. His hand twitches toward him and Loki watches him carefully, but he doesn’t budge, and Thor can’t leave. Not until this makes sense.

(Not until Loki is _right._ )

“Brothers do not do as we have done,” he says slowly. Loki cringes on the floor, an age-old fury in his eyes.

“We have been both. I think originally, yes, but this is not the only time this has happened, sometimes we are and sometimes we are not.” Loki’s eyes have been locked on him since he first let him in, like if he blinks, he’ll disappear. Or perhaps he thinks he’ll attack him.

“Loki…” he swallows. He peruses the room, looking for any weapon less severe than his elkhorn knife. The cords on the curtains to tie him up. The grumbling radiator (that would burn his pretty skin red).

A memory pops up, an image of this man, purple-faced, panting, surrounded by fire and nearly dying of the heat because he was not built for it, he was not built for it and they were _not_ brothers and that fact had nearly killed them both. But hadn't he dropped him before that? No. Loki let him go. And how… how had he responded?

They can’t be brothers. They can’t not. Loki sees it in him and stands shakily, wincing as his legs unfold over the wood.

“Don’t leave. I need you to understand, please, before we go out there and it all, it all goes away again and it stops feeling real.” Full height, now, and trembling. Easy to shove out of the way. Slighter. Slender, even, yet more evidence they are not related and _they are not brothers._

Thor slides his hand over the chair, collecting his shirt where he’d hastily thrown it before the revelation, when like the door it was the only barrier between him and the unknown but much, much sweeter. Loki startles as he throws him the shirt.

“Speak, Loki. You have ten minutes. Convince me.”

Loki swallows, then smiles emptily.

“Firstly,” he says, slowly, as though Thor will leave before his promise, “I never told you my name.”


	8. Consolidation, Pt. 1 [M]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki reveals a bit too much, but still technically gets what he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dubious. Who's using whom?

"You're a eunuch," Thor whispered, his hand frozen between his brother's legs. Loki resisted shivering as his fingers spread and inspected, unknowingly brushing over his slit. The sensation was alien, discomforting. Not least because it was his brother with his large, clumsy hands, ignorant of the fact that he could handle him as well as a woman. Maybe he would.

"Yes," Loki hissed, twitching away as Thor stroked the smooth cover of his smallclothes. "Now you see what Odin's planned for me. For _you,"_ he bites out. The accusation in his tone was as genuine as the horror on Thor's face.

"Brother, I…"

Loki swatted him away.

“You should return to the celebration, _crown prince.”_ He could barely contain his glee as his plan unfurled: Thor dangling from his fingers, ever more ready to overthrow their father. How unfortunate, to love his brother so. Loki’s voice deepened, “If you have an ounce of wisdom in you, you will never say a word of this. Knowing you, though…” He turned to hide his smile, shrugging on a robe and pulling it tight to suppress the sudden cold he felt. Disquieted and jittering, his body still stung from the foreign touch--the feel of Thor’s fingers would linger for days, but he still managed to funnel the shiver of his breath into a quiet, uncharacteristic whimper. “At least allow me this one secret between us.”

“You keep many secrets from me,” Thor charged, but it lacked venom. If anything, he was desperate to reach out, to take his little brother in his arms and comfort him as he had when they were children. He was always the one to reach out, still knowing what the reaction would be. Loki was both the asp and the bowl of fruit.

“You have the power, here,” Loki reminded him.

Even the fact that it was a lie was not enough to repel the taste of ash in his mouth. He felt Thor shift behind him. Hunching instinctively, Loki prepared for some sort of attack his brother would undoubtedly claim was a hug, as if they’d had “a moment,” but he stayed far away. Resistant. Delight flooded him and Loki’s blood sang at the success of his ploy.

“I will not speak a word of it,” Thor swore, "but please, Loki. Stop bearing such things alone.”

“And would you have me spread open? Are you curious about Odin's handiwork?” His voice dripped acid, enough truth to his rage that Thor clenched his fists. He looked over his shoulder, tying off the robe and pulling his hair back and beginning to braid it for bed, a near universal sign that he wished to be left alone. Thor rarely responded to subtlety.

“Get out,” he ordered. Thor did not move. “Get. _Out.”_

The lummock neither left nor approached, an uneasy stillness unbecoming of him as he regarded his brother with a discouraging and more than irritating mix of love and regret: a look Loki had become used to, but it still hit its mark even if he refused to show it. That didn’t mean he couldn’t use any of the feelings it brought forth. A lie born of truth lives a long and prosperous life.

He tilted his head down, allowed a wave of frustration to color his cheeks, every motion calculated with the correct amount of anger, even up to the callousness with which he braided his hair. Several strands fell loose and Loki _never_ permitted such disarray.

When a hand cupped behind his head, he knew he’d won.

Thor leaned the scant inches down and stroked his neck, solemnly grasping the braid, an unusually nuanced frown on his face that Loki did not struggle to decipher, but which nevertheless disconcerted him. He had a plan for every one of Thor’s clumsy and dubious curveballs. However, the proximity in time of that look to the moment he’d touched his genitals was… well… how would you feel? It wouldn’t be out of character for Thor to doubt him, to eventually assume this were some sort of trick, and he was decidedly more hands-on when it came to challenging his illusions than most. Loki wouldn’t stand for either a repeat performance or an embrace to "soothe" him. Even if he was using part of his body toward his own means, he felt oddly exposed. He couldn’t shake it. He needed Thor gone to take full pleasure in his plan, to fully compose himself and move into the next phase.

That is, despite their long history and taking each other’s presence for granted, having Thor here made it hard to concentrate. He wasn’t scared. He _wasn’t._

Was this how women felt?

“Let me fix this.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. He was about to threaten fratricide, or at least introduce a knife to familiar ribs, but Thor carefully pulled loose the braid and his hand slipped down to his collarbone. He gently pushed him toward the settee. The glow of the fire spreading heat across his back, Loki dropped in false obedience.

There’s something magical, not in the literal sense, about having a god, a prince, the brother you begrudgingly idolize, worship you in such a way. It was Thor who had taught him to braid his hair. Years had passed since he last allowed it because somehow, when it was Loki, bodily autonomy had to be _earned_ in this family. Not that Odin ever touched him. Not that he ever denied his mother.

No, it was strictly Thor that complicated things.

(As always.)

He jumped when fingers tumbled through the curling locks, the heat of his hands like an iron. Loki kept stiff as they brushed his temples, working backward in a cascade of braids he would thread through to the back. Not a look Loki typically wore in public anymore--the leers he got and backstabbing comments about his “feminine wiles” were enough to curtail his desire for more elaborate looks. “Daring” or “handsome” were preferable, anything to make him less effete next to his brother. Not that that task wasn’t Herculean or worse, a little like Sisyphus, as he’d read of those Midgardian interpretations of Niflheim.

Thor liked him this way, though. He always said. It should not have pleased him that he left the mark of his affection so tenderly. The plaits pulled back toward his neck and he leaned with them, bending toward Thor’s attentions even as he suppressed goosebumps at the ghostly feel of Thor’s fingers tracing his spine.

“Would you prefer it coiled or low?” came that deep voice from behind. Loki closed his eyes. Contrary to the shiver in his core, that bit of proffered control soothed him.

“Dealer’s choice,” he murmured. Thor’s hands traveled with lingering glances down his vertebrae, stunting his breath. Loki concentrated, grounded himself. Seidr wove through the ends of the strands to keep them from splitting, but Thor pulled back suddenly, startling them both. When Loki glanced back, he raised a brow at the slight panic on his brother’s face as he turned his hands.

“Relax.” He waved him off. “It’s simply to keep your work from being undone in the night.”

“I did a good job, then?” Thor ran his fingers satisfactorily over the plaits. Loki turned to stone.

“Yes,” he grunted, slapping him away. “And now that I’m ready for bed, would you please _leave.”_

He had thoughts to think. Plans to reorganize. Body parts to ignore.

“I know you read for hours before bed.” Thor leaned over his shoulder, teasing him with breath in his ear. Loki jolted away with a thin frown. “Will you let me stay until then?”

A dismissive huff, “If the crown prince is absent from a feast in his honor, the people will question why he followed the _witch_ to his rooms.” That, at least, silenced Thor. Quiet on his part never meant acquiescence, though. He had his own brand of mischief, and Loki sighed when he swung over the settee and landed with a shudder of wood next to him.

“If what you say is true about father’s intentions, then no one would dare question me.”

“Not to your face.”

“And not to yours, either, not without fear.”

Loki did like that idea, Thor defending his honor with the threat of condemnation, imprisonment, and death for disrespecting his brother, even if it paled before the possibility of deposing him and taking the right to punish detractors, personally.

“Fine,” he clipped, grabbing a book from the little table, “but keep quiet. And don’t fall asleep--I can’t stand your snoring.”

“Then what am I to do?” Thor asked, mischief gleaming in his firelit eyes. Loki frowned.

“I don’t care. Leave if you can’t figure it out.”

Air shoved from his lungs and Loki nearly lost the book to the hearth as Thor’s head fell in his lap, huge body squirming into a comfortable position on Loki’s comparatively delicate settee. He said nothing. The book opened. Thor closed his eyes, folded his hands over his chest, and Loki read. Or tried to.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” he snapped. “Be quiet.”

Thor didn’t apologize. Thor couldn’t begin to apologize, not with what he thought he knew about Loki’s predicament, about their father, court schemes, and the unknown depths of his cruelty. Loki had more than hinted about the disparity of his affections. His brother didn’t deny that the weight on his lap was comforting, though. Rather than relaxing into his deceit, the moment was genuine. Enjoying Thor in his space was an open secret; the enchanted lock on the door to his chambers only permitted him, without Loki’s express permission. To his knowledge, Thor had never abused it.

The weight on his lap. Embers crackling in their bed of ash. Before he could stop himself, he stroked Thor’s hair, shivering at the deep sigh that rumbled through his flesh.

“You know I love you, brother,” Thor said with the gravity of evoking a spell.

And yet how _easily_ he said it, a direct line from his heart--how easily things came to this man without designs, without cunning, without any awareness or resistance to Loki’s machinations. He wriggled his legs. Thor grumbled and lifted his head, sliding an arm under it and pulling his own braids out of the way. The light brush between his legs made Loki jolt, a frisson deep inside, something that would have Thor at his mercy in other ways. Thor froze, nearly rising.

“I didn’t mean to,”

Loki pushed him back down and sighed, shifting at the strange sensation.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, Thor.”

“Can I…”

“No. Whatever it is,” Loki said, knowing what it was. “Absolutely not.”

“There is nothing wrong with you, Loki,” Thor said, stepping oh so carefully out of bounds for his typical manner. “I would have you by my side the rest of my life. Do not doubt that.” Loki prudently ignored him. Daft as ever, he took that as a cue. “I would never share your secret, only…”

“You’re curious, as though I were a sideshow,”

“That is not it.”

 _“But it is,”_ Loki ground out through his teeth. “Although, I suppose if the future king orders me to do so, I would have to bare myself like any maid you have encountered,”

“That is _not_ what it is!” Thor’s face darkened, thunderous. The sky outside obscured the moon with grasping clouds and Loki stiffened, eyeing the deep shadows cast through the window. “The extent of what he’s done to you, I’ve never seen or even heard of such a thing. You’re a prince. I mean, imagine, if anything were to happen to me...” His voice softened as he pondered. Loki’s back grew rigid as an icicle. Revelation dawned slowly, and quickly flooded with wrath. Thor spun in his lap, gripping his wrists as he forced a knee between his legs.

“If this is another one of your tricks,”

“It is not! Let me _go,_ Thor. Thor!”

Fingers wound their way beneath the robe, lifting his shift. Loki bared his teeth and thrashed in utter futility. He called for his seidr, but it’s a fickle thing--one must be decisive in its use, and his thoughts careened into pure sensation as Thor’s large fingers coasted along his naked thighs, finally reaching his quim.

Thor didn’t move. His eyes were almost reptilian: large, unblinking, momentarily thoughtless beyond the most basic biological function. Loki grimaced and clamped his legs down, but his fingers slipped along the seam to part him. He hissed fiercely,

_“Stop!”_

And Thor did.

For once.

But his fingers remained. Loki felt his heartbeat, so sensitive that every wrinkle whorl and callus lodged in his memory as the first true touch. Thor stared up in shock, unable to process.

Loki was wet. Exceedingly so.

“Now you see what father truly plans for me,” he gulped. Thor’s face twisted with something unidentifiable, a frown and not a frown. “If you are unable to produce an heir, the kingdom still needs someone of royal blood, and he cannot simply have the throne swapped for his lesser son.” His voice rose, shaking with honest rage as his mind expanded, swallowing possibilities and, unlike his nature, venting his horror and rage like a quasar: blinding, mesmerizing, and powerful. “I am his failsafe, his back-up, his _broodmare,”_

“You will bear Asgard’s heir,” Thor said simply, as though it were purely his decision. Once he was king, it certainly could be. He sank his finger deeper inside, stroking the soft flesh, smile twitching with each convulsion of his brother’s quim. Loki covered his mouth and curled his knees together. “Father already disapproves of my options. The only one he would consider is the Vanir princess, but even there, it is not uncommon for sisters to marry their brothers…”

“I am not your sister,” Loki spat.

Thor slipped his finger out and studied the shine of it, glimmering in the firelight. Loki immediately cloaked himself in as much fabric as could be found, pressing back into the furniture as much as possible without falling off.

“It is not uncommon among royalty on Midgard, either, for family to marry to consolidate power. Surely father plans for that.”

“You’re mad…”

Thor smiled.

“I will not allow father to use you.”

“But you would use me, yourself,” Loki spat derisively.

“Your thoughts are your own, I cannot control them. But I will not let him control you.” Thor stared briefly into the fire, then back at his brother with an austere curve to his smile, a sharp, naked thing. “You will have the throne with me, brother. It will be everything we dreamed.”

And Loki’s plan folded together, without his slightest effort or desire to fulfill it


	9. Sometimes, Not Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's not right about his dreams--he can't seem to shut them off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little exposition, here and there

At least when he’s dreaming, there’s a sense of time. Misadventures and liaisons lead the way.

They’re together, and together, and together, and then they're not. What is truly random escapes our first instinct, since most people looking at a graph of points spaced from each other like static on a television would say, “That. That is chaos.” To the casual observer, even humanity’s strongest telescopes seem to reveal a universe far dispersed. No apparent structure or logic to it. Bright, but solitary. Light years of isolation. God’s will is mysterious, they might say, but it’s not that easy. Loki has known several gods (excluding himself) who would shake their godly heads.

Sometimes they spend lifetimes together all in a row, and then he wakes up. Loki opens his eyes to the Void and lets the darkness sink in, using this brief respite between memory and dream to wonder how Thor fares as the new king of Asgard, or president, mafioso, fireman, and disconcertingly frequently, s the father of their children. Loki keeps them safe without a soul to know. 

_I am Loki, of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose._

Thor is at his side and then he isn’t. They’re at each other’s throats, they’re brothers, more than brothers and, occasionally, achingly, they are nothing at all to each other. He dreams of lives where Thor is either out of his reach or never existed in the first place, and he should be happy about that, he thinks. They can’t hurt each other. What Thor forgets within seconds of waking, Loki carries for years. Centuries. Eons, maybe, but at this point he’s not really sure.

What is random is messy: it clumps and disintegrates and presents nothing as neat as static separation, union. It is not evenly dispersed nor distant. Anything it gives can be taken. Anything promised, fulfilled, and the time in between is equally confounding.

Loki's lucidity in dreaming is unmatched. One would think if he were dreaming that he'd be able to turn it this way or that, to dream pleasantly, at least, and wake up when things sour and remain asleep if they haven't. Thor was the last person he saw before plunging into the dark, and he strenuously avoids picturing his expression, even as it haunts his dreams and it’s clear how they revolve around him. So then, what are they?

What does Loki want?

Brotherhood. Childhood. Lives and flashes and mere sensations evoked or born by the darkness, nothing to soothe in between but the cold reality of his self-isolation. His sacrifice mattered, of that much, he’s sure, but he can only keep his eyes on the consequences for so long. It's too easy to fall to distraction when there's nothing to see. And what does he see?

Brothers. Friends, foes, comrades-in-arms. Princes, beggars, humans, enemies, strangers, master and servant, guard and prisoner, father and son. Lovers. Marriage. Husbands, children, teachers, partners, begrudging brothers-in- _law_. Weddings, theirs and others’.

What would Thor say if his little brother told him he dreamt of them fucking? And so _frequently?_ Not to mention the many dreams where he wished they would.

He doesn’t tease himself about why they come to him so often, such thoughts, given that the time to psychoanalyze is endless and endlessly unattractive, at that. But his _face._ What would it look like? Loki snickers, a mistake since there’s no air and the convulsion of his abdomen reminds him more of his surroundings (or lack thereof) than he wants to acknowledge.

Disgust. Bewilderment. He can picture Thor’s nonplussed, increasingly enraged expression as clearly as any other time it was pointed in his direction. This, though… there’s not exactly a playbook to “Hello, dearest elder brother, how did you sleep? Oh, thanks for asking, I dreamt you sucked me off and then I rode your cock until Ragnarok and you filled me with Asgard’s next princelings, oh, oh terribly sorry, could you aim for the bin?”

(The problem is not the physicality, not for Loki, it would seem.)

Of course, he wants intimacy. It’s never easy to _let go,_ give or take a few moments in his life. This choice.

He’s borne children. Sometimes, he gets to watch them grow up. Others, not that far. He wakes when they’re old enough to run from them, when they say _Dada_ for the first time and he watches Thor’s smile, first at their child, then at him. Or her. He’s done both, for better or worse. Growing old together. Divorce. Affairs, custody, backstabbing, fights in the parking lot, ill thought-out trysts with the ink still wet: hate sex, that’s what the humans call it. Shouting. Shoving. Fighting, fists in his hair and at the back of his neck, pushing, pulling, grinding. Hands under his clothes and around his throat and leaving marks their children will question because they never seem to go away, the patterns change, and they fight, and fight, but they’re together, drawn together, and it’s enough. It has to be, wherever he can get it.

Sometimes, Thor is his.

But not always.


	10. As If He's Coming Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even in dreams, Thor is bereft as he muses on the distance that grew between him and his brother--and how much of it was his fault.
> 
> Spicy Thor!whump.

Dreams offer a few hints toward lucidity. Thor doesn’t have anything like a spinning top, but he’s spent enough time in this room to know it is not as it should be, not like it’s been for the past few years. The furniture is dusted, oils and salves populate the side table, and the bed is not cold and stripped, but made up with the green and gold quilt their mother made him, glimmering mischievously at the stitching. Too many pillows. Thor brushes his fingers over one, the feel not quite right.

He always teased him about the throw pillows.

_“Why? They’re only in the way.”_

_“For one, they are not useless._ **_Some_ ** _of us like to read in bed. And second,”_

He can’t quite remember the conversation. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with aesthetics, likely enough his main excuse despite the fact that Loki had always been ready to pitch one at him if he wandered in unannounced.

_“What was the for?!”_

_“I’m_ **_dressing_ ** _, you fool! Get out! Or at least stand on the other side of the screen, Norns know why I have to explain--”_

“I miss him, too.”

Thor closes his eyes. He can picture her strong, slender hands on the doorway, gliding over the notches marking his brother's boyhood growth. Loki didn't have them removed, because she'd made them. Neither will Thor, because there is no one else to preserve them. “I know it seems as though this is the end, but he did not make this sacrifice for nothing.”

“Who’s to say? All that is clear is he’s gone, again,” Thor whispers. “He let go.” Fabric rustles as she moves through the room. When he looks up, he sees the armor she died in. “I am allowed to mourn if he is dead, to be angry if this is another one of his tricks.” She reaches for his shoulder and he ducks away, finds himself standing before the organized chaos of Loki’s vanity.

_“You use too much oil.”_

_“It is not your decision what I do with my hair.”_

_“But you look so nice in curls.”_

_“...”_

_“I like this one.”_

_“Which?”_

_“The perfume, the one that smells like…”_

_“Lilies. Fine. Give it here.”_

Late afternoon sun catches in prisms of crystal bottles, painting the polished wood. Thor runs his hands through the colors as though it were an illusion that could be dispersed by a simple touch. Warmth sweeps over his hand, covering him. This time of day was after their lessons as children.

“You two always spent more time here than in your own rooms.”

“He complained that it smelled like the battlegrounds.”

Frigga laughs, “He’s not wrong. You were never one to take advantage of the bath without coercion. I remember when you would bathe together--”

“Stop it.” He clenches a bottle in his fist, the sharp edges imprinting into his imagined flesh.

_“You lost, didn’t you?”_

_“I did not! She only nicked me.”_

_“You threw your weight around again, as if no one has ever defeated a giant, and she bested you. Come here.”_

_“Why? So you can gloat?”_

_“No. Come.”_

_“...”_

_“Fine, I'll come to you."_

_"You don't have to!"_

_"There we are. You beast--the poor tailor. Stop putting on such muscle."_

_"Loki, I would rather you didn't,"_

_"That’s right, lean back… it doesn’t look so bad, up close. Let me get the salve.”_

_“You don’t need to… that feels nice.”_

“ **Stop it** ,” Thor growls, glare gravitating toward the door to the bathing chamber. Frigga haunts him, maintaining the distance he requires.

“I knew. Even before your father found him. I knew what would be, how this would poison things between you. Oh, my son,”

Such _pity_ in her eyes. Thor hangs his head.

They never acted on it. Thor certainly had no intention of letting on, not that he could ever get a secret past Loki. Loki, his **brother** . There was no chance of asking whether he felt the same or not, no interpreting his soft but opaque glares in taverns, his quiet indulgence of his **brother’s** gambits for glory, the unwillingness to show his body. In the same way he could not hide from Loki, he could never find him: not what he was really thinking, or wanted, or if it ever occurred to him. Thor's paltry excuse of brotherly love did not erase the strange intimacy of his hand on the back of his brother’s neck, their lips inches apart. Not to outsiders, at least. It's not hard for him to lie to himself, either.

Thor is assaulted by the image of his brother in childhood, barely two thirds his height and staring up in wonder and love. Toddling after him, for the time, entirely nude. Innocent. Growing. Becoming a svelte young man and hugging close in the warm waters. Fighting naked.

Pinning him to the marble rim.

Thor was the one to put a stop to the baths. Loki had neither thrown a fit nor agreed, merely stared, undid his braid, and walked in alone, still wearing his robe like a locked door when they might have shed themselves there in his chamber and raced to plunge in the water, the day before. He never showed himself before Thor again, if he could help it. If there was anything between them, it shattered long before his excursion on Midgard, while dropping him was only the nail in the coffin. So much of this is his fault. His arrogance. His punishment.

“Please,” he begs, sitting heavily on the bed.

_“You cheated!”_

_“I did not have to, now yield. Your wrists are as a girl's, I should hate to break--Nmph!”_

_“Serves you right. If the crown prince is unable to produce an heir, whatever shall become of him?”_

_“Loki, wait,”_

_“Oh.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“Move.”_

_“Loki, I’m sorry,”_

_“Thor. Let me go.”_

_“It just does that, sometimes.”_

_“Stop--get off. Get off. THOR.”_

“Get out, get out, get out,” Thor repeats, holding his head. Her hand folds over his shoulder and his eyes fill with tears.

“All is not lost, my son.” She sits next to him and he gives in, burrowing into her shoulder and slipping down her chest as her embrace succeeds. His back trembles soundlessly. Her armor is cold.

“... Did he suffer?”

“Oh, my dear,”

“It’s already happened. You can answer me that much, right?”

Heat spreads over the back of his neck. Her armor disappears and is replaced by familiar leather, a soft, green tunic. He grasps around the trim waist, tight enough to crush a human but a hold all too sweet, painfully nostalgic, and his head is tilted up by a pale finger.

“Brother,” Loki says, leaning in until he feels his breath, “of course I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you love something, let it plunge into the darkness and leave you gasping above--oh wait.


	11. A Chance Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life begins and ends with a mother, at least to those without mates.

_Frigga,_ the priest says. The rest is lost on him.

The gem in Loki’s chest pulses coldly, burning like frostbite while he watches from the sidelines as the casket descends past the flowers. The dark is cold around him. He feels the softness of the satin interior, the eternal darkness on his face. Loki’s soulstone is as hidden as the body now committed to the earth.

Not hers, though. Don’t get him wrong, he’s not the ideal son but he loved his mother, _loves_ her, more than anyone he’s ever met. “Met” being the operative word.

It’s rare enough for a boy his age not to take classmates for a test run, even if the chance of a match is negligible. Rarer still for his gem to be entirely buried in his body with no hope of comparing it. He’s never been open about much. Somehow he knew the man he was destined for would never be his, even if the details escaped him. He’s dreamt about him since childhood. Visions of golden hair growing white, the gentle expressions of a man already devoted to him, hunting for decades and dying unsatisfied. Loki never had the chance but he still blames himself, stupid as it is. He was born in his sixties, after all, now only fifteen and breaking like a widow.

Cancer beat him to the point.

In some way, it’s brought them together. There's consolation in the fact that he at least knows where to pay his respects. He didn’t even come here for that ceremony.

His mother’s coffin remains open as his younger sister, Hela, screams and crushes a crayon drawing beneath Frigga’s stiff, clasped hands. The finale is easy, the audience claps. It’s the slow, dazed shuffle from the theater that leaves a crowd questioning what’s real and what should be. His sister’s screams ravage her throat and he resists the fumbling hug from his reserved stepfather, especially as he seems to need it more than a null father figure should ask of the child he never had. Odin and he aren’t close. It wouldn’t do, to start now.

He turns away, watching the aged crowd weep and thrum around the grave next-door. Two-for-one grieving. Loki is young, to lose a mother, and far too young for the man now eternally concealed from him. Even hidden by the sides of the casket, he can see his face in his mind’s eye. Call it a gift. Wrinkled and pale and still thrumming with radiation from failed chemotherapy. Blue eyes sewn shut.

_"Thor,"_ he whispers, mirroring that faint, grim smile frozen in rigor mortis. "Thor."

Would they meet in the afterlife? The priest talks, and talks, and talks about how hopes are fulfilled for those who see the light. Just words. Loki knows eternal darkness and he’s still alive, no magic wand for a gap in fate forty-five years wide, plus whatever he has left, seeing how rarely the widowed outlive their mates. Their gems seem to siphon directly from the life force in a desperate leap to the other side.

Honestly? And don’t peg this on adolescent angst, but kill him. Now. A lightning strike, anything. Anything. If he keeps thinking in this direction, he’ll kill himself, and he’ll die twice over to imagine that no one will throw herself on his coffin. Not that Frigga wouldn’t be composed. The Apocalypse could come and go and she would still work idly at her stitching, well into her second old fashioned and feeling good.

No. That's not fair, if anything is.

She would have cried herself mute, watched Hela like a hawk for the rest of her life and had nightmares of his death until the end. Loki doesn't have to reassure himself of that: one preschool meander or another into the woods behind the house had tempered motherly love into a hammer coming down on his arse like Judgment Day. He couldn’t dream of a better metaphor. Love as punishment.

Oh, don’t go back to dreams, you fool. That’s all you’ve got. Don’t exhaust it.

But really, _really,_ did Thor ever dream about him? Of their future together? Loki never never got that far. Perhaps you can’t if it’s not meant to be, and his subconscious never picked up the slack, not to say that it won't, now that that’s all he has. He saw exactly how it happened, how Thor passed alone, unmarried, and entirely out of reach. Nothing more to be done but accept it. No early mornings waking next to him, no wedding or honeymoon or arguments ending in sex and _I’m sorry_ like a pulp romance. No, if Thor had ever seen him, he may have mistaken him for their child.

Would he have fucked him? Loki’s thought about it since adolescence dug its claws in. Likely not. Thor was a stand-up man. Loki was only eleven when he first woke from a dream of him walking out of the ocean, grizzled and nude and still cancer-free. But those _muscles._ Talk about unfair!

He laughs. That’s all it takes for the tears to spill.

Their fates reflect each other. Alone. Loki is fifteen and utterly alone. Now that he knows his soulmate has passed, the future is as open and doomed as a paper boat set out to sea, and he, steadfast but idle at the helm.

He wants the Earth to swallow him. Instead, it swallows his mother. It feasts on his mate.

Hela chokes on her sobs and strikes at their father, absorbing all attention so that no one questions his head turned away from Frigga’s grave, the fist around the funeral program. It’s acceptable for a boy his age--just learning to command himself, stubbornly resisting his tears and comfort from any relative with an open shoulder. That much makes sense. The rest…

This is his lot in life, like it or not.

_Not._ See who cares. His mother, maybe. Isn’t that a laugh?

The headstone shines even under the overcast day, blue granite with thunderous quartz strata and his name deeply engraved, _Thor._ A name is a wish is a curse is what’s left: a life without him. Write a romcom about that. _Dating a Headstone,_ subprime hour, dead at the pilot. The most they’ll ever speak to one another is through the eulogy, and even then, his quiet _amen_ is stunted by tears.

He covers his mouth. Uncle Laufey pulls him into his thin chest, firm if not grounding. He twists away to watch the crowd disperse from Thor’s grave and sees a woman lingering, in her eighties, at least. A man takes her arm to lead her back to the car, calling her name gently but urgently as though to wake her from a nightmare.

Loki drops the program. His uncle and stepfather gently corral him away from the guests as his attack progresses into panting and tears and horrific confusion.

Her face is his mother’s, and her name, _Frigga._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention ANGST?


End file.
